A wide variety of networks may be viewed as a set of source nodes that communicate with a set of terminal nodes via an interconnect fabric. For example, a storage area network may be arranged as a set of computers as source nodes which are connected to a set of storage devices as terminal nodes via an interconnect fabric that includes communication links and devices such as hubs, routers, switches, etc. Devices such as hubs, routers, switches, etc., are hereinafter referred to as interconnect devices.
The communication requirements of an interconnect fabric may be characterized in terms of a set of flow requirements. A typical set of flow requirements specify the required communication bandwidth from each source node to each terminal node. The design of an interconnect fabric usually involves selecting the appropriate arrangement of physical communication links and interconnect devices and related components that will meet the flow requirements.
Prior methods for designing interconnect fabrics are usually based on manual design techniques. Such manual techniques may be based on heuristics and/or prepackaged structures. Unfortunately, such techniques are usually error prone and may result in an over-provisioned interconnect fabric that is more expensive than needed to meet the flow requirements. Moreover, such techniques are usually time-consuming and may require expert intervention, thereby increasing design costs.